Babbles' Drabbles
by Beruldh's Babbles
Summary: The drabble series literally no one asked for. I have a lot of unfinished/never will be finished works sitting around that I figured I'd post here. Will probably have a LOT of crossovers. Currently T for language, but will probably include themes of horror/gore/etc later. See chapters for specific warnings.
1. Ultimate Enemy AU

Response to this tumblr post: post/159015368111/narwhalsarefalling-danny-phangirl-perce

"has anyone seen an au where dan killed vlad _instead_ of danny? so like danny going to look for vlad but instead runs into 24 y/o totally human him..."

* * *

"Well, that's Vlad for ya; subtle as a flying mallet," Danny muttered as he chunked the giant ass football out into the glowing green abyss that was the Ghost Zone. He really didn't have the patience for Vlad's antics at the moment—not only was he exhausted from his voice crack of unprecedented proportions, but he had done nothing but get kicked from here to kingdom come all day and he was beyond ready for an uninterrupted 13-hour power nap. Of course, that didn't stop the niggling voice in the back of his head (one that sounded suspiciously like Jazz) that couldn't help but mention that going back into the Real World half-cocked and with less than half a plan was probably fifty shades of stupid.

He hopped through the portal anyway.

Considering what usually happened when he attempted to fly through Vlad's portal uninvited, it was a rather anticlimactic entrance. Not only was there a distinct lack of blasting and condescending banter, but there was also a distinct lack of _lighting_, and not just the flipped-the-light-switch-off variety of dark. Even with the overhead lights off, a dozen or so machines would still be blinking and humming and working away at whatever nefarious (just look at that CAT word—take THAT Lancer!) machinations Vlad was plotting. It was a deeper kind of darkness, a lack of light mixed with silence and an extra dash of creepy thanks to the weak green glow of the open portal. Looking around at the clearly abandoned lab, it was frankly shocking that the portal was even functional.

"Man, Vlad really let himself go—geeze, I hope he hasn't been gorging himself on fudge for the past ten years."

Danny floated through the lab, using his own glow to try to illuminate the various black blobs that he assumed were old machines and other science-y stuff that his parents would probably recognize as invaluable to Spectrology as a field.

"What a load of junk!" Danny was seriously put out—how could _Vlad_ be so completely useless?! I mean sure, Dan's a scourge against humanity, yadda-yadda-yadda, but it's not like he could just _get rid of_ Vlad. On the annoying-ness/un-stop-ability scale, the man was practically on par with cockroaches! Maybe he just relocated or something? I mean sure, it's weird that he'd just leave all this junk behind, but, who knows, maybe he just wanted to start fresh? Yeah, that's probably all it is.

Declaring the lab a Lost Cause, Danny abruptly turned intangible and flew through the roof, emerging out into the less-than-scenic wilderness that once was Wisconsin. Deciding not to dwell on it, he picked out due north before turning in Amity Park's direction and taking off flying.

* * *

"Okay, how is Amity Park even _more_ depressing _without_ Dan terrorizing it?" Danny couldn't help but groan as he finally entered Amity Park's city limits. Everyone was clearly still hiding down in the shelters, but that just made the demolished buildings, wrecked shield poles, and general destruction all the more ominous. Not really knowing where else to go, Danny automatically angled his flight towards home, more than a little shocked to see Fenton Works still standing and looking almost exactly as he remembered.

I mean sure, it was a bit… rougher around the edges than _his_ Fenton Works (and, y'know, the Ops Center was kind of wrecked on the pavement instead of sitting on the roof where it belonged, nbd), but he'd take what he could get. Maybe one of his parents' old inventions could help him get home? That sounded smart, right? Figuring he had nothing left to lose at this point, he hardly hesitated before phasing right through the front door.

He pretty much immediately regretted that decision.

While entering Vlad's lab was entirely anticlimactic, entering Fenton Works was, if anything, _overly-_climactic.

The glowing green blades were new.

The ectoplasmic goop was just as gross as he remembered.

Before he could blink, he had found himself _slimed_, and pinned against the door with glowing green blade held centimeters from his neck that had popped out of a panel in the ceiling and was now simply suspended, waiting to finish its arc.

"Hey! what's going on? Can't a guy walk through his own front door anymore or has that changed in the last ten years, too?" he resisted the urge to struggle against the rapidly solidifying green goo, eyeing the oversized blade warily. His attention was jerked back into the main room at the sound of a rapidly charging ectogun.

"What game are you playing at, Dan? What did you do with Valerie?"

Danny's jaw couldn't help flopping open in astonishment, opening and closing in what was surely an incredibly suave and level-headed manner. Standing in front of him, ectogun charged and pointed at his head, was… himself? Except not. Just like everything else in this messed up future, there was something _off_ about this older Danny. His eyes were a lot colder for one, and duller, completely lacking their usual spark. The hard set of the jaw was another—Danny didn't think he had even been capable of looking so _mean_.

"You've got five more seconds before I start shooting!"

The threat brought Danny out of his head and back into the present situation—y'know, the one where he was about to shoot himself in the head.

"Wait, wait, wait, you can't shoot me!"

"Oh, yeah? Watch me," Older Danny's finger twitched and Danny was seriously about to lose it—why couldn't at least one version of himself _not_ shoot first, ask questions never?

"ButI'myoufromthepastandifyoushootmeyou'llprobablydie,tooandthenIwon'tbeabletostopDanfromdestroyingeverything!" Danny spat out as fast as possible, trying desperately to beat the finger pulling the trigger.

Thankfully older Danny had retained at least _some_ of his normal-ness as he paused, but the gun never wavered from its position. "How could that possibly be true? I'm tired of your games, Dan. I don't know why you've picked now of all times to play the dumb kid card, but it's not going to work. Now, I'll ask one last time—Where is Valerie?"

"I'm telling the truth! Some weird ghost called Clockwork tried to kill me and Sam and Tuck—well, mostly me—but we escaped to the future only it's not any better. Sam and Tuck got sent back to our time, but Dan and I fought and he shoved the Time Medallion inside me so I can't get home. But I have to get back before he wrecks my timeline and makes sure that I become him!"

Danny wasn't really sure what kind of reaction he was expecting from that whole spiel, but Older Danny's cold laugh certainly wasn't it.

"Right, and, let me guess, if I just tell you the real location of the resistance, you'll _totally_ help us kill Dan, too."

"Wow, I get to be a resistance leader? That's so cool!"

It was probably a blessing that Valerie got back when she did.

* * *

"After all this time, I can't believe you didn't tell me," Valerie spat out, anger doing a poor job of covering up the genuine hurt in her tone. After the chaos of her arrival, Danny finally found himself de-slimed (he'd forgotten how much he hated the process) and weapons mostly put away (at least none were currently aimed at his face). He was surprised to have gained an ally in Valerie—apparently seeing Sam and Tuck alive again really drove the whole "actually from the past" bit home for her. But that was all that the news bought him—after confirming he wasn't _actually_ Dan (yet), Valerie had turned her scowl on both of them and was fingering her equipment a little too eagerly for Danny's comfort. As for his older self (Dan? Danny? Daniel?), Danny was still thoroughly weirded out.

"You didn't need to know—it doesn't change anything."

"It doesn't change anything? It changes everything!" Valerie was beginning to sound exasperated with the circles this conversation had been going in.

"It really doesn't—Dan still has to die; I'm still trying to stop him. Our… _history_ doesn't matter."

Valerie's face flushed dark with anger, a look Danny knew from her younger self was sure to be followed by a _long_ rant. Deciding to step in before things could get any worse, Danny awkwardly interrupted, "So how, umm… How _did_ Dan happen?"

The simple question stopped both of them in their tracks as they stared at Danny incredulously.

"You mean, you don't know?" older-Danny scowled, "Then how exactly _were_ you going to stop anything?"

Danny crossed his arms and scowled in the classic "pissed-off teen" pose, "And here I thought our '_history'_ didn't matter."

Swiping a hand down his face in exasperation, older-Danny sigh-scowled, "Fine, then, since everyone's dying to know, it all started with those stupid CAT tests.

Tone turning mocking, older-Danny continued, "While my genius sister got '_the highest score in the history of the CAT'_, I was doomed to set a new record for all time lowest. To put it bluntly, I was fucked and I knew it. I had no future beyond flipping burgers at the Nasty Burger and living in my parents' basement, so I did what any 14-year old with ghost powers would do: I cheated.

"After swiping the answer key from Lancer, the test was a piece of fudge. Unfortunately for literally everyone, my nosy sister ratted on me. Lancer decided to call an intervention, I guess—he invited my sister, my parents, and even Sam and Tuck to the Nasty Burger for some sort of bastardized parent-teacher conference. I was running late, but I made it just in time to see the restaurant blow sky-high with everyone inside.

The previous scorn and self-deprecation drained from older-Danny's voice, leaving it surprisingly cold and to the point, "The secret sauce was apparently explosive, and a previous ghost fight had set it to blow. They all died instantly. With no where else to go, I was sent to live with my godfather, Vlad. Honestly, at that point I didn't even care about what had happened between us; I didn't care about much of anything. All I wanted was to get rid of the pain, the ache that wouldn't go away. Despite everything, Vlad apparently cared in his own way. He created a new device to rip the ghost out of me—having lost the source of my obsession, my ghost half was a complete wreck, one no one knew how to deal with.

"Of course, that didn't end well, or we wouldn't be here, now would we? I don't know what my ghost half was thinking, but he turned on us and ripped out Vlad's ghost half as well. When the two merged… well, you've seen Dan."

Previous anger forgotten, Danny stood slack-jawed, horror clear in his gaze, "What… what happened to Vlad?"

Older-Danny snorted and rolled his eyes, "Isn't it obvious? Dan killed him. I'm not sure why he didn't kill me, but I'm sure he regrets it now."

"So this, all of this, really is my fault?"

"Duh, weren't you listening?"

Danny really thought his older self was taking this a little too lightly, "Excuse me for being upset at apparently causing the end of the world!"

"Don't be so dramatic—humans are still around, aren't they? It's not over yet. Besides, with you here and Dan in the past, it's the perfect time for us to make our move."

"I don't know if you've noticed, Danny, but the ghost shields are toast. We don't have the forces to make a move right now!" Valerie finally spoke up, a distrust that hadn't been there before present in her stance.

"Not for a direct attack, no, but if we kill Danny, then Dan will cease to exist."

There was a pause as everyone caught up with that statement.

"Wait, what? Kill me?! Then you'll die, too!" Danny physically took a step away from his older-self, eyes darting between the two adults. "Besides, everyone's still alive in my time—I can go back and save them and stop Dan from existing that way!"

"Look, hate to break it to you, kid, but out of everyone here, I have the best understanding of what both you and Dan are capable of. I know your current abilities, and I know there's no way you can beat Dan," older-Danny's ice-cold gaze bored into Danny's own without hesitation or mercy. "My plan is guaranteed to work; yours is guaranteed to fail."

"Wait a minute, I'm not about to just let you kill a kid, half ghost or not," Valerie stepped between the two and palmed her weapon, catching older-Danny's gaze, "Not if there's another option, which it sounds like there is."

"Valerie, did you hear anything I just said?" Older-Danny was starting to look a bit annoyed now, "I know what he can and can't do—I was him! Pitting 14-year old me up against Dan is suicide; Dan is too powerful."

"If Dan has nothing to worry about, then why did he trap younger you here then? Why bother trying to take him out of the equation if he isn't a threat?"

"Yeah, what she said!" Judging by the glares sent his way, his comment was not well received.

"Besides, you don't know everything I can do!" Now _that_ caught older-Danny's full attention. "I'm not supposed to learn my ghostly wail for another 10 years, right? I literally just used it like an hour ago! I've already changed from the Danny you were—I know what's at stake, and I have a move that you never learned how to do. _You_ might not have been able to defeat Dan, but _I_ can! I just need your help to get back to the right time."

Valerie stayed standing between the two of them, not taking her eyes off of older-Danny, "You can either help or you can leave, but I'm not letting you kill him."

Older-Danny's eyes didn't move from Danny's, "It's going to hurt, sending you back. The only way to get the medallion out is to cut it out, and I don't have any painkillers that'll work on you."

Danny didn't waver, "I can handle it."

"If I do this, you can't lose."

"I won't."

* * *

I gotta say, this didn't go where I thought I was going, but w/e. A lot of the tags/notes in the original post seemed to focus on older-Danny being like a redemption moment/feeling guilty for creating Dan, but idk, I feel like having half of you ripped away kinda messes you up in the head. Sure he's fully human, but like I don't think he's a full-human anymore, y'know?


	2. Jak II Crossover

Crossover with Jak II

* * *

"Hey, tall dark and pointy!"

Jak looked up clutching his still spinning head, even more confused than he was before.

"What?"

"Yeah, you! There's not exactly a bunch of people around."

Jak wasn't sure what he'd expected to see when he found the source of the voice, but a black-haired kid all but pressed up against the bars of one of the cells wasn't exactly it. Granted, he wasn't surprised at being heckled by a fellow prisoner, but the kid looked _weird_. He was short for one, not to mention pale as a corpse and his ears were short and stubby. That, and the kid was floating.

"What, you mute or something? Whatever, doesn't matter," the voice muttered, clearly disgruntled at his lack of a response. "Look, just come over here and bust a fellow prisoner out, yeah? Aren't jailbreaks all the rage nowadays?"

"Why should I help you? Get yourself out," Jak was feeling more and more grounded, and with that came the simmering anger he'd grown accustomed to over the last year.

The kid pouted.

"Aw, come on! From one science experiment to another, we gotta stick together!"

"Wait a minute, cool your jets—why're you even here in the first place?" Daxter finally seemed to have gotten over his near slice-and-dice. "For all we know, you're a crazy criminal that'll try to kill us first chance you get!"

"Right," the kid snorted and rolled his eyes, "like little-old me could lay a finger on Mr. Angry-claws over there. All I'm trying to do is get out of here and stay far, far away from stabby scientists on a mission. Besides, I'd owe you one!"

"What would I need a favor from you for? You're too weak to even break out of a simple cage."

"Hey, it's not _my_ fault they found out I'm like super allergic to eco!"

"Is that why you're floating?" Daxter couldn't help but peer closer at the odd sight.

"Common side-effect."

"Whatever, this is getting us nowhere. We've gotta get going if we want to escape before the guards wise up. C'mon, Daxter."

"No fur off my back," Daxter gave a small shrug before hopping up on Jak's shoulder—just like the good ol' days.

"Hey, wait a minute!"

Jak didn't so much as hesitate, turning away and moving towards the exit.

"If you get me out of here, it'll piss off Praxis!"

Jak paused.

"He'll be absolutely furious, foaming at the mouth and everything! Not to mention the humiliation of losing not one, but two eco-freaks? He won't—"

Jak tore through the metal bars before grabbing the boy by the front of his shirt and shoving him up against the wall, dark eco coursing through his system. As soon as the boy slammed into the wall, he yelped in pain and his back started smoking, sparks flying off from where he was touching the wall.

"I am _not _a freak."

"Okay, haven't reclaimed that yet, cool, cool," the boy raised his hands in a calming motion, trying not to wince at the burning along every point of contact with the wall behind him. "Look, as much as I can feel the sparks flying between us here, how about you put me down and we can have a conversation like normal, not-freaky people, okay?"

Jak glared a moment longer before releasing him, letting him float away from the wall and glance at his back with a grimace.

"That's some allergy," Daxter commented, eyeing him up and down. "How does someone even get an eco-allergy, anyway?"

"Simple—by having really, _really _bad luck," the boy was now rolling his shoulders, seemingly recovered from the whole ordeal. Jak was still glaring but didn't move to rough house him again.

The boy suddenly grinned, his eyes turning a bright, glowing green as he lifted his hand in a mock salute, "Thanks for the hand—I'll see ya later, experiment buddy and weird talking animal!"

Without further ado, the boy disappeared into thin air; Jak and Daxter shared a look. What exactly had they just released into the city? Shrugging to themselves, the two turned to make their escape.

"At least we don't have to deal with him anymore, right?" Daxter thought out loud, elbowing Jak to get a reaction. Jak just frowned—somehow, he didn't think they were that lucky.


	3. HP PoA Crossover

Crossover with Harry Potter PoA

* * *

_Holy shit, what just happened?_

Danny didn't have much time to think, between "Aunt" Marge's shrieking, Mr. Dursely's yelling (borderline screaming), and Harry tugging insistently at his arm, dragging him up to their shared rooms. He was more in shock than anything, barely avoiding slipping on the ice-slicked kitchen floor on his way out and stumbling up the stairs.

It wasn't the ice that shocked him either. That part made sense. It wasn't even the Aunt-Marge-blowing-up-into-a-giant-human-balloon part that was rattling his brain—he'd seen weirder over the years.

It was that his cousin, his scrawny, _normal_ cousin had done it.

Magic was a thing. Of course it was a thing.

He threw clothes in his only duffle blindly—it's not like it much mattered. There was very little left that was of any value to him, just a thermos and a couple of photos. His cousin's trunk was enormous in comparison, not including the giant owl cage (owl included) that was propped on top.

"Where are we going?" they were the first words out of Danny's mouth since shit had once again hit the fan.

Harry just scowled, "Anywhere's better than here."

Not true. There was definitely at least one place that was so much worse than the Dursely's could ever hope to be.

Danny shook his head, shoving images of burning buildings and a dark menacing laughter out of his mind. He barely focused on the screaming match between Mr. Dursely and Harry as they tore down the staircase and out of the house.

It wasn't until they had walked several more blocks that Danny finally pulled himself together, once again asking, "Okay, seriously, where are we going?"

Harry slowed and then finally stopped in front of the neighborhood park, glancing over his shoulder at Danny, "Well, I figured we'd go to Hogwarts. School's about to start again soon anyway, and maybe Dumbledore will let us stay the summer, or we could go stay with Ron or something."

Danny blinked slowly, not as together as he'd like to think, "Hogwarts? Dumble-what? Harry, what's going on?"

Harry popped himself in the forehead, "Oh, right! Sorry, I forgot that you don't know, I mean after the accidental magic you just did I just—you know what, it doesn't matter. Okay, so Hogwarts is a school for witches and wizards like us, and Dumbledore is the headmaster. Normally they catch wizards a lot younger than you, but I'm sure they can figure it out."

"Wait, back up. Accidental magic? Wizards? What does any of that have to do with me? I can't go to wizard school, I'm not a wizard!"

_They'd kill me as soon as they realized the truth—I'm a freak._

"Danny," Harry said slowly as if talking to a startled animal, "I just saw you do magic—the opening and closing cabinets? The cold room? The iced floor? You did all of that, and that makes you a wizard."

_I can't do this._

"You—you think I'm a _wizard_?"

"Of course you are, what else could you be?"

_I can't do this._

"I'm—I'm not—"

Before Danny could finish, a growling in the bush interrupted him. Harry immediately turned away, whipping out his wand to defend them against the perceived threat; he'd already used underage magic once tonight, what was once more? Danny's eyes easily cut through the shadows, picking out the black dog, hackles raised in warning. Frankly, he wasn't sure what to think—it clearly wasn't a normal dog (because that would just be too easy) but what exactly was special about it was unclear. Too much had happened too fast for him to process what was happening; he just wanted to sleep for at least a decade, maybe longer.

_I can't be here_._ This can't be happening._

It was obvious when Harry finally caught sight of the creature. He raised his wand in preparation for a spell, words of power on the tip of his tongue, only to be cut off as a double decker bus appeared out of nowhere, sending him tumbling back onto the sidewalk. The bus doors pulled open with a hiss and a rag-tag ticket collector stepped off, clearly confused by the state of things.

"What're you doing on the ground?" he chewed out alongside his gum.

"Never mind that," Harry waved off, pulling himself up and nervously looking around the bus for the now missing dog.

"Well, you getting on or what?" the ticket collector impatiently followed up, not interested in waiting on this weird kid checking out the street.

"Um, yeah, we'd like to go to the Leaky Cauldron."

"We?"

"Yeah, me and…" Harry trailed off, head whipping around wildly in confusion.

Danny was gone.


End file.
